Even though tablets and smart phones are spreading onto jobsites at a swift pace in construction, chief financial officers from major A/E/C firms say technology purchases must come with solid returns on investment as part of that adoption. This was one of many technology issues highlighted during the two-day ENR FutureTech conference held by McGraw-Hill Construction in San Francisco this week.
Two panel discussions, "Chief Information Officer Roundtable" and "IT from the CFO Perspective," on Dec. 13 reinforced the industry-wide movement to bring information technology to the job site and free it from a jobsite's trailer and home office. But how to achieve this for a reasonable cost of ownership, and with the right mix of hardware and software, is a huge debate in firms far and wide across the industry.